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Adapted sports are increasingly recognized as a potent rehabilitative tool for persons with disabilities (PWD), facilitating optimal levels of health and wellbeing. At the same time, increased participation in adapted sports stimulates concomitant growth in technology and innovation worldwide. Success in wheelchair sports is said to be dependent on three factors: the athlete, the wheelchair, and the interaction between the athlete and the wheelchair. Proper use of technology has the potential to impact all the three factors significantly. In recent years, researchers have focused on the investigation of technologies impacting user interface, equipment customization, injury prevention, and performance improvement. This article presents a review of recent publications with a technological focus, selected for their importance and relevance to the field of wheelchair sports (wheelchair rugby, basketball, tennis, handcycling, and wheelchair racing) and for their potential to inform the decision-making process of athletes, coaches, and other healthcare professionals active in the arena of adaptive sports.

Cross-sectional study. The purpose of this study was to examine stroke characteristics of long-term manual wheelchair users during an extended manual wheelchair propulsion trial and the extent to which changes in propulsion biomechanics occurred. Human Engineering Research Laboratories, VA Rehabilitation Research and Development Center, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare Systems, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Kinetic data were recorded from 21 subjects with paraplegia at four time points over the course of a 10-min propulsion trial at a steady state speed of 1.4 m s−1. Upper extremity kinetic parameters were recorded using Smartwheels, force and torque sensing pushrims. Subjects for propulsion biomechanics changed from early to late during the 10-min trial. Individuals displayed decreased maximum rate of rise of resultant force (P=0.0045) with a simultaneous increase in push time (P=0.043) and stroke time (P=0.023), whereas stroke frequency remained static. In addition, there was a decrease in out of plane moment application (P=0.032). Individuals seemed to naturally accommodate their propulsive stroke, using less injurious propulsion biomechanics over the course of a 10-minute trial on a dynamometer. The findings may have occurred as a result of both biomechanical compensations to a challenging propulsion trial and accommodation to propelling on a dynamometer. These results suggest that subjects may be capable of independently incorporating favorable biomechanical strategies to meet the demands of a challenging propulsion scenario.